“Mummy, I’m happier now I’ve got a new routine”. This is a relief for us all in our family. We are no different to any other family at the moment coping with these strange and uncertain times. Some of our challenges may feel a bit quirky, unusual or just plain selfish to other people but they are our reality in the same way that every single individual, couple and family will be having their own unique set of challenges at the moment.
We were eating our Sunday dinner. This was important. My husband had cooked a favourite roast meal for us, the same as on any other typical Sunday. I made sure that my veggie sausage acted as a gravy breakwater so that no gravy seeped on to my roast potatoes. What I would have given when I was young to have those food dividers on my plate to ensure separate foods didn’t touch! But back then when I was growing up, it was called being a “fussy eater”. My son, who is a teenager and now bigger than me; and who enjoys wrestling; cartoons that involve lots of swearing and gross-out humour; and is planning how he will attract girls by developing a muscly chest and holding our cute dog in a photograph for his tiktok account (I kid you not!) has mashed potato not roast. And it is lovingly crafted into the shape of a steam ship by my husband – complete with upright sausage funnel. This familiarity brings us pleasure and reassurance. Even the dog is happy, she recognises Sunday by all the visual, scent and auditory cues that go with our weekly roast dinner and she’s eyeing up her bowl in readiness for some leftover veg. If our son settles down with a partner when he is older, I hope they have skills in making sausage and mash steam ships!
Our son announced to us that he was happy because he has a new routine now. He listed his routine and although it didn’t sound that educational, healthy or varied, it was a good solid routine that would fit into these strange times and add some predictability and control for him. It is like this:
- Get up
- Breakfast
- Watch a cartoon
- Play video games
- Lunch
- Go outside for the afternoon
- Dinner
- Watch YouTube videos
- Watch a comedy programme or a car programme
- Bedtime
- Bedtime story with dad
- Sleep
In fact, it is a fantastic routine because he has created it himself and we can add in various bits and pieces to his day that won’t upset the routine but will add variety and balance. For instance, the YouTube video watching time can be used to slip in something educational. The video games time can be spent online gaming with friends – including old friends he has lost contact with. The outdoor time can be used for all manner of activities that will promote exercise and wellbeing.
Before this new routine had become set in our son’s day, he was extremely restless and although I feel I shouldn’t say it; demanding. He cannot initiate activities for himself and it was an endless “mummy” (said in a very particular tone that consists of 4 syllables and a whine) “what shall I do now?”. This was mostly because he did not know what to do but also because he freely admits he likes saying “mummy” like that. He tells me that he finds the sensation in his mouth and ears very satisfying. It probably also creates a stronger reaction in me than his normal chatter if I’m honest, and as someone who is not particularly demonstrative or outwardly emotional, he possibly enjoys seeing my lack of patience escalate whilst I am trying to look calm and normal! Of course, getting fantastic sensory feedback from certain sensations can be very stimulating and if you repeat them endlessly it can create its own sense of calm, predictability and control – and just plain, feel nice – which is important to remember during these times where so much doesn’t feel nice because of the anxiety whirling through society. I am sure an increase in repetitive behaviours is a fact of life for many autistic people at the moment. His new routine hasn’t stopped him asking questions or seeking reassurance about what is happening or needing prompts for what to do next but it has helped him feel slightly calmer and helped us as parents understand him better which means we can respond in a more helpful way. It means we can concentrate more on our own self care which is vital, particularly when you are all under one roof. I need to wind down at the same time as our son winds up in the evenings and this can create quite spectacular meltdowns from us all if not anticipated and proactively managed. I’m not saying it will avoid overload or overwhelm but it has reduced the impact of it.
My own anxiety about the uncertainties has increased too and of course my autism is affecting how this looks and feels. I imagine I have the same anxieties as the rest of society about getting ill and seeing loved ones get ill. And the whole, massive, almost infinite box of “what ifs?” and “whys?” that is sitting directly above my head, drip feeding my brain at the moment. My routine hasn’t changed much and some pressures have been reduced because I thrive on working from home and my job is safe, my employers are fantastic and I have a valued and important job that is enabling me to focus my coronavirus anxieties and the need to plan, control and understand what is going on into something positive, useful and beneficial. It also means I can leave Covid-19 at the metaphorical office door when I finish work and I can focus on other things.
It is important for me to have breaks from interests and I crave balance in my life constantly because I know it benefits me. I have a tendency to hyper focus and fixate on things to the point of obsession and this can be detrimental to my wellbeing so I need to compartmentalise things so that they don’t take over. “Broad rather than deep” is my mantra at the moment. Although I readily admit that my ‘normal’ depth is probably deeper than most people’s – I can’t just let it lie, I have to explore, find out and see how everything works. I can hear my mum’s voice berating me “you have to fiddle with everything don’t you, why can’t you just leave it alone instead of taking it apart and breaking it?!” I have always been an analyser.
Social distancing. I had never heard of this phrase two weeks ago, but I am loving the experience. I am absolutely not being facetious about this. I have been more sociable than ever before. I have reconnected with old friends, colleagues and acquaintances and I’m enjoying the online contact with them. What makes this work is that there is no expectation that we will have to meet face to face. I avoid friendships and going out in groups because I find it so painful not knowing what to do and say and it reminds me that I am different – and that reminds me of every negative experience I have ever had of being weird, different and an easy target for bullies or teasing.
Our son is from a very different generation. Differences are more accepted and he has grown up with ‘different being normal’ in our family. He is far more self-assured than I am and he is missing his friends and the face to face contact and being able to run around with them and play fight and hit each other and muck about and wrestle them. Strong proprioceptive input is important for his sensory regulation and although I am a middle aged woman and smaller than my son and therefore not a good wrestling partner – particularly if you take into account my accident proneness – we need to find time for lots of strong hugs and squeezes and physical work like digging the garden and moving firewood and bouncing around on a gym ball. He also misses talking with his friends and the PlayStation is a wonderful tool at the moment because he can play online, (combat games mostly) and pop his headset on and talk to them. It does make the house feel rather small though with his put-on Cockney accent shouting orders at his platoon to take down enemy troops!
Education can wait. It can be done by stealth. Sneak in an educational YouTube video; strike up an interesting and informed discussion or debate about sociology, politics and the media – there is after all a wealth of information out there ripe for discussion. The biggest lesson I hope he learns from this is how to develop resilience and good coping skills. I wasn’t taught these and I didn’t learn them myself from watching others. What I did learn as a child about coping was not always the healthiest or safest ways to get by and has cost me deeply in wasted years where I no longer thrived and in ‘treatment’ and therapy to put things right. It was far easier to rebalance my missed education. School was not a good place for me and in terms of exam results I certainly ‘failed’ even though my attendance levels were high and I did not miss time because of a pandemic. When the time was right I completed a Masters degree and I have just written out my proposal for the PhD I am going to undertake. It was relatively easy to achieve with hard work and the right sensory environment for studying in. What was much harder to rebalance and is a daily effort on my part is my mental wellbeing.
Self-care through these times is essential and I hope we can make a better, fairer, kinder society because of this pandemic. Even if we can’t, the most important thing for our family at the moment is being together, reflecting on what is important to us and for us and helping each other cope. That is the thing we can influence. We cannot make politicians see sense, we cannot make people follow advice, we cannot learn everything there is to know about immunology and virology and medicine and even if we did it may not change anything. But we can take our time, take stock of who we are and create new routines that work and demonstrate how important it is to take care of ourselves. From that, good coping skills and resilience will come and that will be a more useful lesson in life than doing sums or history lessons.
Undercover Autism 